


stardust in his skin

by Rethira



Category: Original Work
Genre: Mermen, Merpeople, Other, merman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He calls you into the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stardust in his skin

The merman comes on the fourth day.

He swims lazily, close to the coast. His tail parts the water every so often, but even without that, you’d know what he was.

Purple striped spines fan around his head. He flaps fins where his ears should be, and there’s webbing between his fingers. He smiles at you, close mouthed, and waves invitingly. Calling you into the surf. Calling you into the sea.

You stay high up the beach.

 

The island is large, you think. Too large to walk in a day, and besides, there are... _things_. In the forest. They don’t come onto the beach, but you see them watching sometimes. They blink big orange-yellow eyes at you and bare their jagged fangs, like they’d eat you in an instant if only you came closer. You stick to the beach, only darting close enough to the forest to grab firewood or branches that look like likely fishing poles.

With the merman here now, you daren’t go too close to the water.

You’re left with a narrow strip of sand, just far enough from forest and sea to be ‘safe.’

You hate being shipwrecked.

 

The merman throws you a fish. It’s bigger than anything else you’ve caught in days, still flopping and alive. When you look at him, the merman smiles again. You see a flash of teeth and think, _my, what big teeth you have_.

_All the better to eat you with_ , said the wolf.

The merman raises his webbed hand in a mockery of a wave.

You’re tempted to throw the damned fish back, but hunger claws at your stomach.

You think you hear laughter that night, but you can’t be sure.

 

He catches more fish for you. Throws them up the beach with almost obscene ease. One almost hits you and this time you _do_ hear laughter. He only laughs harder when you glare; the gills on his neck flare, like bright purple gashes. You venture briefly into the forest that day, intent to collect something to throw at him.

But there are fat, ripe juicy fruits scattered on the forest floor, and you’ve been living on fish for _so long_ – all the fruit you collect goes in a pile next to your fire, and you eat it slowly, licking the sticky juices off your fingers.

The merman doesn’t laugh that night; the fish he brings the next day is twice as large as any he’s brought before.

You go to sleep on a full stomach.

 

You wake in the middle of the night, disoriented. For a moment, you think you’ve fallen out of bed, what time is it, god do you have a deadline tomorrow- and then it all comes back.

The moon is bright and full above you, the air still and silent.

In the quiet you can hear something dragging across the sand.

A wet hand clasps around your ankle – you kick out reflexively, but the hand is immovable. You try to scream, but the sound dies in your throat. You struggle, clawing at the sand, and then your assailant hauls themselves into view.

It’s the merman.

He lets go of your ankle, allows you to scramble away from him.

For a moment, you just stare at him.

 

He looks like there’s stardust in his skin. Patches here and there glow golden – bioluminescence, but since when did bioluminescence come in gold? Gills, not like fish gills, more like – what was it? – an axolotl, external, flushed purple-red. Partly retracted, but still visible, like great welts on his neck and sides. There are spines growing from his neck and down his forearms. They’re flattened down against his skin – it's too oily to be human, you think. 

He flaps his ear-fins; the expression on his face is almost smug. It makes you want to kick sand in his eyes.

Instead, you sit carefully down, on the other side of your fire pit. He quirks an eyebrow, but settles down on his side, twisting and lashing his tail until it lies parallel to you.

You don’t know how, but you must fall asleep at some point, because when you wake up he’s gone.

The only sign he was there at all is a handful of purple scales, glinting in the shifting sand.

 

A few days later, there’s a fish resting beside your head. It’s still fresh, so it can’t have been there long. The merman is nowhere in sight; the sand swirls in strange patterns all the way down to the tideline.

The day after that, there’s another fish, and another. All the while, the merman never shows his face. You wonder if this was his plan all along – taunt and tease you, until you were used to him, then disappear. You want him to come back. You want to see him.

It’s not a human face – _not a friendly face_ – but it’s _someone_.

The things in the forest are a poor substitute.

 

You’ve been collecting fruit in the forest, a sharpened branch your only protection, so you missed him dragging himself up the beach.

He’s waiting by the fire pit, three fish laid out beside him. He looks up when you approach. His fins flare, open-closed. He rolls over, watches you approach, and there’s something almost heady about his gaze.

It only gets more heated as he watches you eat. You cook the fish – he grabs one from you before you can, turns his head away from you, and bites into the fish with macabre relish. When he turns back, there’s blood smeared across his face. You shudder, drop your eyes back to your food.

He twitches when you reach for a fruit. His eyes follow your fingers as you peel it, drop the skin, and slowly eat it. You meet his gaze briefly, just as you lick your fingers clean.

There’s fire in his eyes.

 

He takes your sticky-sweet hand and draws it to his mouth. You can’t watch; you feel his tongue on the pads of your fingers, quick like a whisper. Tasting. His grip on your wrist gets firmer, and your fingers are slowly drawn into his mouth.

He could bite your fingers off in an instant, you think, _my what big teeth you have, all the better to eat you with_ , but you don’t feel even a scratch. Just his tongue, warm and wet, licking down the length of your fingers.

You’re shaking. You open your eyes – _just to make sure, just to look_ – and immediately your eyes meet his. You can’t look away, can’t break the gaze. His eyes are hooded, smouldering, his gills wide open and his spines flared.

He lets your fingers free from his lips, twines his hand with yours, and draws you closer.

When his fingers press at your lips, you find you can’t say no.

 

He tastes like salt, sea and sand and you have never tasted anything better in your life.

 

His skin glows like starlight where you touch him.

 

You wake with the dawn, suddenly cold – he’d been warm, you hadn’t expected him to be warm – and you struggle back into clothes that have seen better days.

The merman is nowhere to be seen.

But then you hear a splash and see him, waving to you from the ocean. Holding his hand out towards you. He’s not far out, just where the sand falls away, but even so, you shake as you walk to him through the surf. You take his hand, let him carry you into the water.

He peels you out of your clothes again, lets them float away.

 

His lips are soft when he kisses you, and his hands are so, so gentle as he carries you down, down, down.

The last thing you see is his smile, and oh, you were right.

_My, what big teeth you have._

_All the better to eat you with_.


End file.
